ESPN Wins Big With Football Coverage
By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/3/2006 3:30:00 PM
Football, football and more football helped ESPN handily win the basic cable ratings game last week. The network averaged 3.54 million total viewers during prime for the week ending Oct. 1, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Sept. 25's Falcons/Saints game at 8:30 p.m. was the week's most viewed program, with a huge 15 million total viewers. College football on Thurs. night, Sept. 28, was the week's fifth most viewed basic cable showing with 4.07 million viewers.
Coming in second for the week was USA with 2.47 million viewers in prime on always strong wrestling and Law & Order: SVU numbers. Non ad-supported Disney took third with 2.38 million viewers. The network's Oct. 1 Halloweentown movie was the week's second most-viewed program with 4.61 million total viewers. TNT, Nick at Nite followed with 1.81 million and 1.40 million total viewers in prime, respectively.
